: Re: How to get past the cringe factor of reviewing my earliest writing attempts? I’m currently working on a novel that I’m remodelling from an old fanfiction novel I wrote around 6 years ago.
There is an old book, Becoming A Writer, by Dorothea Brande, (still in print which indicates how popular it is) which does address this problem along with a great many others.
Brande was one of the earliest artist/authors to notice that there is a part of the brain which acts as critic which often tries to rip apart writing before the creative self can even get to the good parts.
In many people this type of thing leads to them not even being able to get the words down so you are far ahead of that and that is very good.
Author Provides A Process
In the book, Brande works you through a systematic way of addressing the problem through a series of challenges you provide to yourself to discover what part of the writing process you enjoy.
Separating Two Selves
Many researchers have discovered that the two parts of our brains work as a Team of Rivals to create a better targeting system : targeting in on the bulls-eye of your best writing.
Creative & Critic
In other words, the two parts of your brain, Creative and Critic work together to create your best writing, but there are times when you Critic will wrestle your Creative to the ground and smother her.
There are brain exercises you can do that will help you get into a state where you are more open and more able to quiet the critic so you can do your creative work.
I've gone through this myself and that book has helped quite a bit.
Focus On the Technical
Another thing that can help is understanding the foundations that make writing a challenge.
I believe there are two major challenges to writing:
emotional
technical
Emotional things wrap us up as we question ourselves with things like, "Am I good enough to be a writer? Who am I to think someone will read this? Why am I writing such crap?" etc.
It is at these times we have to literally turn that part of our brain off and only examine a sentence for technical value.
As You Focus On Technical, Emotional Fades Away
Make a list of things you are specifically looking for in each sentence and only examine the writing one sentence at a time.
Look for things like:
remove adverbs / use stronger verbs
remove unnecessary adjectives
shorten sentences where appropriate
try to watch the scene play out in your mind and then transcribe it
onto the paper.
Add items to the list which you specifically look for.
But, during this time only consider these things. Any time your mind attempts to just say, "this is crap" or whatever, insure you mindfully move back to working on the technical.
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